


from treading water to drowning in zeroes

by unholyconfessions (orphan_account)



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Coda, Eddie-centric, Episode Related, F/M, Gen or Pre-Slash, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Post-1.17, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 18:44:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3661047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/unholyconfessions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eddie doesn’t know Barry, not like Iris does, but he knows this. Set after 1.17. Spoilers ahead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	from treading water to drowning in zeroes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [define_serenity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/define_serenity/gifts), [coopbastian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coopbastian/gifts).



> > For Dee because she's my everything and she said she needed this. And wedding gift for Blaise and Allison just because.
> 
> I'm sure we are all still crying and vomiting rainbows from last night's episode, so I decided to make it worse by offering you a sweet little coda. *evil laugh*
> 
> Title from The Flatliners' _Brilliant Resilience_ , which is a song I use for almost all my titles, because I can and all I can see is Barry/Eddie when I listen to it. So, yeah.
> 
> Enjoy! Feedback is love. :-)

Eddie rolls on the bed, disentangling his arm from Iris’ waist, to stare at the ceiling.

His body slowly sinks into the mattress as he breathes, the thumping of his heart getting louder in his ears and fading out the small sounds Iris is making in her sleep. 

Eddie sighs, rubs at his eyes when he realizes he’s not about to get any sleep soon. He moves, throwing his legs over the side of the bed, and Iris moves with him, mutters into her pillow, “Babe, it’s late. Get some sleep.”

He rests his elbows on his knees, nods even though she can’t see him, and says, “Yeah, I just need a minute.”

She hums something in response, tugging the duvet to wrap it more tightly around her, and Eddie leans in to give her hair a kiss before getting out of bed.

He takes careful steps toward the living room, dust and bitterness bumming a ride under his feet. He stands in the dark once he’s there, watches as outside lights dance on the wall, almost jumps out of his skin as tires screech somewhere in the distance.

His phone sits on the coffee table, in the exact same way he’d left it earlier in the night: atop a magazine Iris bought but never read, forgotten there alongside Eddie’s gun and holster, their keys in a messy tangle over it.

He turns on a light, one small enough that Iris probably won’t notice, and slumps into the couch, feels as though it could swallow him whole and it wouldn’t hurt a bit.

Barry is the Flash. 

Barry Allen is the Flash.

How?

Eddie bites down onto his cheek.

_How?_

Eddie picks up the phone and curls his knees close to his chest, an arm going around them to keep them in place. 

The bright screen makes his eyes hurt as he stares at it, his thumb hovering over Barry’s name. He laughs at the little lightning bolt Iris put next to it. It was supposed to be a joke—who gets hit by lightning, anyway?—but now, well, what a lovely coincidence. He’s got the Flash’s number.

It takes him a moment to realize he’s already tapped Barry’s name.

“Eddie?” Barry’s voice sounds in the silent room as Eddie brings the phone up to his ear. When Eddie doesn’t respond, he echoes, “Eddie.”

There’s something in his tone—worry, fear, anticipation?—that Eddie can’t make out. 

Eddie exhales, long and painful, and his lungs starve for air that he can’t seem to breathe in.

"Eddie, it’s late. Get some sleep,” Barry says, after a beat, and he almost sounds like Iris.

Worry it is, then.

“Yeah, I just—” Eddie swallows his words along with his courage. He wets his lips; his hands start to sweat. “I know it’s late. Sorry.”

There’s a rustle in the background, as if Barry were moving on the bed, clothes—skin—against sheets. Eddie closes his eyes, sighs, hears Barry do the same.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” says Barry.

Eddie nods and lolls his head back. It’s harder to breathe in this position, but the burn in his throat grounds him, makes his thoughts stop spinning in his head even if just for a moment.

“How?” he asks, and he doesn’t expect Barry to answer. 

“I don’t know.”

“That night—”

“It wasn’t me, Eddie,” Barry says, softly, and Eddie can almost picture him, clear as day, as he says it. “I’m sorry.”

That small nod of his head, the way his shoulders fall and his eyes dim, that little hitch in his breath.

Eddie doesn’t know Barry, not like Iris does, but he knows this.

Barry continues, after a moment, “You need to sleep. Tomorrow, Eddie,” he promises. “Tomorrow you can ask me whatever you want, but not tonight.”

“Not tonight,” Eddie echoes, without a reason.

Barry hums a response, a quiet agreement, a small encouragement for Eddie to go back to bed, but Eddie just smiles, surrounded by the dim yellow light.

There’s probably something he could say—angry words, forgiveness whispered amongst them, incredulity, doubt—but he doesn’t say a thing, and neither does Barry.

He listens to Barry’s breathing, short little bursts of air that rival his own. 

Sleep catches up to him, makes his eyelids heavy every time he blinks, but he doesn’t surrender. He continues on listening, stops breathing when he hears Barry move again, makes a sound in his chest so Barry knows he’s still there.

“Tired?” Barry asks after a moment.

Eddie nods, whispers, “Yeah.”

And he’s losing this fight after all.

“Go to sleep.”

Okay. _Okay_.

“Tomorrow,” he says.

Barry gives out a little chuckle, and he sounds just as tired as Eddie as he says, “Tomorrow.”


End file.
